They sat hidden on the beaches for a billion years before a Yooper with a flashlight figured them out
Walk a Lake Superior beach by day and you would step right over them. Plain gray rocks, nothing special. But shine a UV light on the right one after dark, and it glows like an ember in the sand.
They are called Yooperlites, and the best part of the story is that they were hiding in plain sight for thousands of years before anyone noticed.
A Yooperlite is a chunk of syenite, an ordinary-looking gray stone, that happens to be packed with a mineral called sodalite. Sodalite is the magic ingredient. Under ultraviolet light, it blazes a fiery orange and yellow, sometimes in scattered flecks, sometimes in veins, sometimes in an all-over glow that looks like a tiny galaxy.
The wild thing is how recently we found out. For all of Michigan’s history, these rocks sat on the beaches looking like nothing at all. Then in June 2017, a rockhound from Brimley named Erik Rintamaki took a UV flashlight down to the Lake Superior shore one night, on a hunch about how minerals react to the light.
He came home with two glowing stones the size of dimes, and he had no idea what they were.
He sent samples off to Michigan Tech and a university up in Canada, and they confirmed it: these were fluorescent sodalite rocks, the first ever verified in the state. Rintamaki gave them a name that stuck, mashing together “Yooper” and the glow.
Word got out fast. Photos of the glowing rocks went around the world, and suddenly people were walking Lake Superior beaches in the dark with UV flashlights, hooked on the hunt. Today you can even book a guided Yooperlite tour with Rintamaki himself.
If you want to try it, the rules are simple. Wait for dark, grab a 365 nanometer UV flashlight, and walk slowly along the waterline, scanning for that telltale orange glow. The eastern U.P. beaches are the hot spots, from Grand Marais to Paradise, because that is where the glaciers dropped them closest to their Canadian source. These are the same Lake Superior shores that give us wonders like Pictured Rocks.
And here is a thought to sit with while you hunt. The glow inside those rocks is more than a billion years old, formed in the deep past and hauled here by ice. You are just the first person to ever see it shine.
So next summer, when the sun goes down, do not head inside just yet. Grab a flashlight and hit the beach. There is buried treasure out there on the shores of Lake Superior, and it has been waiting a billion years for you to find it.
Sources: Rock & Gem Magazine, Pure Michigan, and the Associated Press.
Image credits: Yooperlite photos courtesy of Erik Rintamaki / Yooperlites.com. Used with permission.
Keep exploring
More From Yooper Hub
Know a story we should cover?
Help Us Find What Matters Across the U.P.
Send us a local lead, community event, photo, or story idea. The best Yooper Hub stories often begin with a reader.
YOUR READING IS COUNTING
You are earning Yooper Points.
Your progress is saved in this browser. Finish the story to earn 10 points, then keep them with a free account.